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Essential drugs to be made available in hospitals

ALAPPUZHA: The State Government has asked the Director of Health Services to ensure that essential medicines are available in government hospitals in the State round the year, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has said.

Inaugurating a new block at Kayamkulam government hospital on Saturday evening, Mr. Chandy said the doctors of government hospitals in the State had been given permission to buy essential medicines from outside in case of exigencies.

Mr. Chandy said the policy of the Government was to allow private hospitals and government hospitals to exist side by side in the State. The Government will provide all help to government hospitals to ensure that they provide quality service to the deprived sections of society. The progress gained by the State in the health sector is because of the services rendered by government hospitals. The Government will not allow them to deteriorate, Mr. Chandy said.

At the same time, the Government will encourage private hospitals that have state-of-the-art facilities. Private hospitals in the State are providing services that were earlier available only in foreign countries, he said.

The Chief Minister said the Government would appoint more doctors and supporting staff in all government hospitals in the State where there was necessary infrastructure.

Local MLA M.M. Hassan, who presided over the function, read out the declarations of Health Minister K.K. Ramachandran upgrading the hospital as a taluk hospital and renaming it as P.K. Kunju Memorial Hospital. (Mr. Ramachandran did not turn up at the function.)

Mr. Hassan laid the foundation stone for a new operation theatre in the hospital, which will be constructed with the money being provided from his MLA fund.

A large number of Congress workers had turned up for the function. A strong police force was deployed in the area following a hartal called by the Democratic Indira Congress (Karunakaran) in the town in protest against an alleged attack on its workers on Friday by Congress activists.